Sweet Eternity Page 4

  Losing my temper as we stormed out of the store, I sped up so we were walking side by side and yelled at him again. This time, on purpose.

  “I’m not lying!”

  He stopped dead in his tracks and turned so we were nose to nose, like two bulls challenging each other in a battle of dominance. “There you go, lying again.”

  “How would you know I was lying? What makes you the expert?”

  Leaning in, he put his lips next to the shell of my ear. “Because I lied to myself for so many years, believing I couldn’t possibly love you as much as I thought I did. Lied to myself that I could stay away from you. Even lied to myself that I didn’t want you in my life. Thing is, I’m done with lying. So, either you need to work on your poker face so it’s more convincing when you lie, and maybe I’ll crack one day and believe you. Or, you can do what I did and stop lying. Just so you know, I’m hoping for the latter. Now, stop giving me lip and let’s go. I’m dead tired, and I want to get you somewhere safe before our next fight.”

  Not knowing how to possibly respond to that overload of information, I let Lucas drag me back to our bus, where he pushed me ahead of him to climb the stairs.

  Walking to the same seats we had before, I stayed quiet as he collapsed into the seat next to me with a heavy sigh.

  When the bus’s diesel engine roared to life, the energy drained out of me. I was so tired of fighting—my father, Lucas … It felt like I had been fighting for or against one thing or another my entire life. Now I wasn’t sure if I could muster up the energy to fight for one more thing. That was probably why I closed my eyes, tipped my head back, and shut everything out.

  I wasn’t sure how long I sat there like that before the bus started moving forward. The only thing I could muster up the energy for was to whisper one last question.

  “Where are we really going?”

  “New York.”

  He said it so calmly, but my heart was suddenly racing so fast I thought I might have a heart attack.

  Turning to look at the mad man next to me with eyes I was positive were all but bugging out of my head, I finally told Lucas the one truth I had tried desperately to hide from him. “I left you in Miami because my father tracked me down and threatened to kill you if I didn’t walk out of that room and to the men he had waiting for me outside. I was trying to save your life.”

  I watched solemnly as he shook his head in denial. “You didn’t leave because you were trying to save my life. You left because you know the same thing I do.”

  “What’s that?” I whispered back.

  “That I love you enough to go down swinging instead of giving you up. Any life without you isn’t a life I want. I’d rather fight to the death to keep you than live without you, angel.”

  The sentiment was so earnest and sweet that it broke my heart. It made me wish he could win this fight against my father so I could live in this perfect, little happily ever after Lucas was so sure we could have together.

  It was a dream I wanted wholeheartedly … if only it wouldn’t cost my mother her life.

  Chapter

  4

  Lucas

  “That’s an interesting drawing. Different for you.”

  Ginny didn’t take her eyes off the paper in front of her. The silence was deafening, and I damn near had frostbite from the cold shoulder she was giving me. Hell, it had been three days since we had arrived at the cabin, and five total since the night her father’s men had almost caught up with us at the hotel. At this point, it wasn’t a cold shoulder; it was fucking hypothermia. I felt like it was going to kill me.

  Something inside of me had hoped that she might enjoy coming back to the same campground our families had visited years before. It was sort of like revisiting history. Only this time, I had hoped to rewrite it a bit. However, I hadn’t received the reaction I had been hoping for.

  Ginny had taken one look at the cabin and started sobbing, refusing to let me comfort her. Then she ran into the bedroom and locked the door so I couldn’t follow her. Nor did she respond to any of my cajoling or pleading through the wooden door for her to come and talk to me. Hours later, she had unlocked the bedroom door and walked out, completely ignoring me. She hadn’t spoken a word since.

  Or, I should say she wasn’t speaking with words. Now, her artwork? That was a different story.

  First, she had started drawing on a napkin. Hoping to do something that might put me in her good graces, I had called up to the campgrounds store and ordered some paper and colored pencils. I hadn’t even gotten so much as a thank you, but my gift had paid off in other ways.

  I could discern what was going on in Ginny’s head by looking at her artwork. Just as I was doing now.

  I watched as she picked up one of the gray colored pencils, using it to fill in the outlined armor worn by the skeleton sitting on his throne. Her artwork, as usual, was extraordinary. The details were amazing. Her imagination came to life before my eyes.

  Which was exactly why I was a little worried, as much as I was enthralled.

  This was not Ginny’s usual brightly colored pieces full of heart and soul, broadcasting her dreams and imagination. No, that skeleton king sitting slack-jawed on his throne was beautiful but bleak, meaning my angel still thought she was in a futile situation.

  It was amazing she hadn’t drawn out the plans for my funeral, since she was so sure her father was going to kill me.

  What the hell did a guy do to make his woman believe in him?

  Not to mention, this wasn’t exactly what I had hoped she would feel after telling her that I was going to save her from the clusterfuck she was currently trapped in. Not that I had expected Ginny to jump for joy and call me her hero, but a small bit of faith wouldn’t be remiss, either. It wasn’t like I was some farmer picking up a pitchfork to fight. No, I was a man trained for war. Didn’t she get that I would be her one-man army if that was what it took to pull her ass out of danger? Obviously not.

  Now I needed to figure out how to get her to understand that I would do anything for her. Absolutely anything … Except let her walk back into danger and out of my life again.

  Leaning over the back of her chair, I placed my hands on either side of her drawing, trapping her in my embrace. She tensed and paused for a moment before coloring again, making it obvious she intended to continue ignoring my presence.

  I watched her use the pencil to make sure, short strokes as she detailed the armor and delicate lines to compliment the strong ones.

  Delicate. That was how I needed to handle this much-needed conversation if I was going to convince the woman to have an ounce of faith that I would make this right for her. Of course, I wasn’t opposed to buying another set of handcuffs to keep her safely out of the way in this war between her father and I if I had to.

  “All those years I spent in the Army, did you ever wonder what it was I did, angel? Maybe research the Green Berets a bit?”

  Ginny stilled at my question, but didn’t answer.

  “ ‘De Oppresso Liber.’ It’s Latin for: ‘To free the oppressed.’ That was the motto I lived by every day I spent as a Green Beret, and it’s a motto I’ll die by if I need to. You understand what I mean by that?”

  She only shook her head. No words. Fine. I had plenty of them for both of us.

  “It means that I would go to hell, or any other shit hole you can imagine, if it meant making you safe.”

  She slapped her pencil down and turned her head to glare at me. “You’re not Superman, Lucas!”

  Had an insult ever sounded so beautiful?

  I didn’t bother to stop the side of my mouth from tipping up at her ire. “I don’t need to be Superman, baby. I only need to be me.”

  She slapped my chest as she growled in frustration. “This is not a joking matter, Lucas Young. I’m scared out of my mind that you’re going to go off and get yourself killed, and my mother along with you!”

  I grabbed the hand she had slapped me with, and with the other, I cupped the
side of her face. “What do I have to do? What do I have to say to make you realize that’s not gonna happen? I get you’re scared, angel—I really do—but you have to have a little faith in me.”

  Her bottom lip trembled, and her eyes glassed over with unshed tears. “A part of me wants to, Lucas—I really do—but the rest of me is absolutely terrified that none of us are going to make it out of this alive. You need to let me go and forget you ever knew me. I promise I won’t tell my father who took me, if he hasn’t figured it out already. All you have to do is disappear from my life.” The last bit was said on a whisper, but its message rang through my head loud and clear.

  Here I was, trying to hold on to her with both hands, while she was trying to push me away with hers.

  A wave of frustration and anger washed over me. Fuck that, it wasn’t a wave; it was a damn tsunami, all but wiping my sanity out.

  “What happened to the girl who used to be so sure we were meant to be together? Where’s that fire, that surety, that nothing and no one could keep us apart?”

  “My father did a good job of proving otherwise, Lucas. Now I know that there’s only one sure thing in life, and that’s death. If you don’t take me back, he’ll come for us. That’s a certainty. The only question is: how many people will he kill on his way to get to us?”

  Gritting my teeth, I waited a few seconds to calm down before I answered her. “How many ways do I have to tell you that I’m going to fix this? How many times must I tell you that I’m not going to let you or your mother die? I swear to God, woman, if I could hire a skywriter to tell the world what I’ve told you so that maybe you would believe me, I would in a heartbeat. Hell, I’m tempted to take one of your markers and write it all over your own body so you see my promises every time you look in the mirror.”

  The silence that stretched between us was long and mutinous, overwhelming with words unspoken, tears unshed, and pleading left undone on both our parts. It was written plainly on her face, just as I was sure my own showed much the same. The difference between the two of us in that moment was simple. I was doing everything I could to hang on to anything there was left of us, and she was doing everything she could do to push it away.

  All the proof I needed of that assessment was given with her next words.

  “If anything happens to my mother, I will never forgive you.”

  After delivering that whispered blow, she turned back to her drawing and effectively shut me out again.

  Love might feel like heaven, but right now, it sure hurt like hell.

  My head was pounding and my blood pressure was probably about to go through the damn roof. I loved this woman, but I needed space to breath for a few minutes.

  Walking toward the door, I gruffly told her, “Stay in the cabin. I’ll be back.”

  In a disbelieving voice, she asked, “You’re leaving me?”

  With one foot out the door, I stopped and looked back over my shoulder at her. “First, you want me to go, and now you sound like you want me to stay. Do me a favor, babe, and make up your fucking mind.”

  Feeling the grip on my temper slipping, I walked out of the cabin, thinking I would call my sister Olivia to check in, and slammed the door behind me before I said something I would regret.

  Like, “Fuck it, I’m gone.”

  Walking down the pathway from the cabin, I pulled my burner phone out of my pocket and dialed Olivia’s number.

  She answered, slightly out of breath, on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

  “Do I even want to know why you’re breathing heavy like that, little sister?”

  “Har, har, jackass. I’m cleaning my house. What’s up with you?”

  “I can’t talk long, but I wanted to touch base with you to let you know that I’m going to be off the radar for a little while. I don’t want you to worry about me, but I need you to keep Mom calm and distracted.”

  “Okay,” she said hesitantly, then added, “Do I need to worry about you, though?”

  “Nope. I’m working on something, and I’m just going to be out of touch for a while; that’s all. I’ll call when I can to check in.”

  There was a short, awkward pause on Olivia’s end, and then she said, “You know, I try not to dig into your life because you’re weird and all, but you calling like this, it’s not what you usually do. There’s something different this time. You sure you don’t have something you want to tell me? Like, you robbed a bank, or maybe you’re on the FBI’s Most Wanted List?”

  I snorted a laugh at my sister’s active imagination. Olivia was crazy, yet she was also very astute. I wasn’t surprised that she had picked up on the fact that something was different this time around. Usually, if I was going to be gone for a while on a mission, I would simply tell her I would be gone for work and would call to check in when I could, not to distract Mom. Thinking about it now, that was what I should have done this time, too. However, Gin had pissed me off so badly that I wasn’t thinking straight.

  It was time to say what I could about what I was doing, which wasn’t much, then get the fuck off the phone.

  “I didn’t rob anyone, and I don’t think I’m wanted. Let’s just say, I’m working on a personal project.”

  Olivia got quiet again, then she mumbled back, “It’s about time, Lucas. Bring her home.” With that, my sister hung up.

  If only I could have talked to Olivia about it more, maybe she could have given me some advice. I was trying to bring Ginny home like Olivia wanted me to. Hell, like I wanted to. But damn if that woman wasn’t making it seriously fucking difficult.

  Ginny

  Lucas had been gone from the cabin for two hours before he finally came back.

  He walked through the door as if it had been no big deal he had just up and disappeared on me like that, a paper bag in his hand. A desperate part of me hoped there was alcohol in that bag, something to drown out my situation with for a little while. An escape from a reality I couldn’t quite wrap my head around.

  Irritated at myself for once again feeling the familiar need for a liquid getaway, I chose to snap at Lucas, “Where the hell have you been?”

  He didn’t even look at me as he walked to the kitchenette. “I bought you some ice cream.”

  Taken aback at the gesture, I blurted out, “Why would you do that?”

  This time, he did look at me as he took the ice cream out of the bag and put it in the freezer. “You used to say ice cream makes everything better.”

  Snorting, I sneered back, “Ice cream stopped working a while ago. Now vodka makes everything better. Did you bother to get any of that? Because that’s what I really want right now.”

  Lucas’s features set into grim lines as he closed the freezer door, leaned back against the counter, and crossed his arms. “Not anymore, angel. You want consolation? It’s not going to be the burn of alcohol going down your throat. It’s going to be sweet, because that’s what you deserve, whether you realize it or not. You can either eat your ice cream, or you can get over your snit and get sweet from me.”

  The man was going to give me whiplash with his mood swings. One minute he was angry at me for not wanting to be rescued, and the next he was trying to get me naked.

  My nerves were shot, my hands were shaking, and my heart was beating like a drum. I had been trying to hide my need for a drink from him. Alcohol withdrawals had set in two days ago and didn’t seem to be getting any better. It was getting harder to disguise my symptoms with my bad attitude and time spent drawing. Everything inside of me was drawn too tight, as if the smallest thing would make me snap. If I didn’t find a way to ease this anxiety overwhelming me, there was a good chance I was going to lose my ever-loving mind.

  And here was Lucas, standing across from me, trying to give me ice cream or sex instead of what I needed—vodka.

  Throwing my hands up, I yelled, “Sex can’t fix what’s wrong here, Lucas!”

  How the man crossed the ten feet between us from one blink to the next, I would never know. What I di
d know was one second he was across the room, and the next he was in my space, grabbing my arms in a firm grip that said he had no intention of letting me go.

  Ever.

  Bringing his face close to mine, he murmured, “Sex may not fix everything, but I promise you, sweetheart, there’s not a problem in your life that I won’t walk through the fires of hell to fix. If that means being the asshole who keeps alcohol out of your hands so you won’t try to solve your own problems by taking a temporary escape, then that’s what I’ll fucking do. You want to pretend for a little while that we’re not standing in the middle of a shit storm, then I’ll give you that escape. I’ll do it with my hands and my mouth. Hell, I’ll use my whole body to make the world fade out around us. What I won’t do is watch you drown yourself in misery. My sweet angel deserves better than that. She just doesn’t realize it yet.”

  “Lucas …” I whimpered in need. Only, I wasn’t sure what I needed more: the promises he was making, or the vodka. The anxiety inside of me was rising, and my entire body burned for something to make it all go away.

  Bringing my trembling hands up, I caressed his face as a different need started to wash over me. Logically, I knew sex was no cure for my withdrawals, but could he really melt the world away? Part of me was desperate to find out.

  Standing up on my tiptoes, I crashed my mouth against his firm lips. Licking his full bottom lip until he opened his mouth, I finally tasted him. He was spicy, like cinnamon gum, and I moaned over his delicious flavor.

  With every swipe of my tongue against his, I became intoxicated in a different sort of way.

  I was getting lust drunk on Lucas Young.

  Not a soul in the world would hear me complain about it, either.

  As we continued to kiss each other hungrily, I felt his hands slide down from where he had been holding me by my upper arms, down to my waist. Then, ever so gently, he started guiding me backward.

  At first, I was confused because he had us heading in the opposite direction from the bedroom. Thing was, I didn’t want to pull my mouth away from his to ask him what he was doing. Then I felt the hard edge of the little table hit the back of my legs.